From “Lobo of Wall Street” to “Bobo of Wall Street”, where in Spanish lobo means wolf and bobo means fool. It is a meme that is circulating these days and that perfectly describes the Argentine president's parable Javier Milei, who as an idol of finance, in a “honeymoon” with the Stock Exchange since he was elected 15 months ago, stumbled into an own goal that cost him the sudden change of mood of the market (the S&P Merval index of Buenos Aires (which fell by 6 percentage points in Monday's session), but also an investigation against him with very serious accusations of fraud, insider trading, abuse of office and even criminal conspiracy, and a request for impeachment by the opposition. By wanting to overdo it by riding the popular consensus and claiming freedom of expression at all costs, the unscrupulous and uninstitutional use of social X has backfired on Milei, who has also made a fool of himself with his own supporters, given that the gaffe (or fraud, if it is proven) has prejudiced over 40 thousand citizens who had invested money by biting at the president's invitation, and that the appeals to the courts have been hundreds, forcing the government itself to open an internal investigation.
But what has the former wolf of Wall Street done this time, praised even by the Financial Times and the Economist for his anti-inflation and turbo-liberal recipes, and now suddenly become an ugly duckling who risks nullifying all the approval received in recent months? Last Saturday, the Argentine president, a great friend of the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had posted on X, shouting the usual slogan “Viva la Libertà c…”, a link to the project “Viva La Libertad Project”, which promotes a new cryptocurrency, called $LIBRA, based on Blockchain technology and intended, according to Milei, who also posted the token number and the value of the currency in real terms, “to incentivize the growth of the Argentine economy, investing in particular in small and medium-sized enterprises”.
A private initiative sponsored by a head of government, that would already be quite inappropriate and illegal. But the scandal does not end there, indeed. According to many experts, this unknown cryptocurrency would hide a pyramid scheme, one of those that exploit the surge in investments – in this case favored by the president's ad – to then sell and cash in the capital gain. And in fact it seems to have gone more or less like this: according to the financial magazine The Kobeissi Letter, before Milei's post $LIBRA It was 80% owned by a handful of private individuals led by entrepreneur Hayden Mark Davis, and within hours its value skyrocketed to a peak of nearly $5.000, only to collapse again after the owners secured profits of $110 million.
Typical market speculation (in jargon it is called “rug pull”), yes, but this time a President of the Republic got involved, who not by chance – according to some rumors – had received at the Casa Rosada Davis, founder of the Artificial Intelligence company Kelsier Ventures and also, in 2020, of the mysterious Luxury Drip, a company with unclear activities. Milei realized the own goal and, after staring at it all afternoon last Saturday, removed the post. But the omelette was already done and in the session on Monday the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, which in 2024, driven by the “chainsaw” effect, had been the queen of the markets, gaining 115%, has turned its back on its protégé. Who is now trying to patch things up by immediately activating the Anti-Corruption Office of the Presidency and creating a special government task force, charged with clarifying $LIBRA, which – another significant detail – was launched on the Meteora platform, coincidentally the same as the virtual currency $Trump created in January.
The opposition has called for his resignation, accusing the president of having deceived thousands of citizens by making them invest and lose money for a total of 4 billion dollars, and is considering opening an impeachment process, for which he does not have the numbers in Parliament. However, this year in Argentina there are midterm elections and Milei could somehow pay the price for the damage to his image that he has inflicted on himself and that has triggered, according to analysts, the first major popularity crisis of his government. There are countless criticisms and angry comments on social media, to which Milei reacted with the usual refrain: "To the filthy rats of the caste who want to take advantage of the situation to attack us, we respond that they confirm to us every day how vile politicians are, increasing our conviction to send them home". Who knows if it will be enough this time too.
